Digital Transformation: Separating Hype from Reality

Just about every day, we talk to executives who are in a panic – quite literally – about how to proceed with “digital transformation." Having worked in consulting for the past few decades, we have experienced these technology-driven hype cycles before.

In the early days, there was a push to automate using enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology. Then came the eCommerce/dot-com economy. Then came customer relationship management (CRM). Then came the cloud. Then came big data. Now, we have digital transformation.

The common denominator in all of these is that they are big, nebulous, new concepts purported to make the difference between thriving and surviving. In their infancy, each is so complex and unfamiliar that it caused some level of fear and panic. As we all know, panic often produces reactions we later regret.